200 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [ANNO 1771. 



being the 7 th part of the Roman oz., they came now to be the 8th part: and there- 

 fore 96 were coined out of the Roman libra, whereas before, under the consuls, 84. 

 From Vespasian to Alex. Severus, as far as he had observed, the silver continued 

 at a kind of stay in respect of weight, excepting only such coins as on some 

 extraordinary occasion, both then, and in the first Emperors time, were stamped, 

 either in honour of the Prince, or of the Empress and Augusta familia, or else 

 in memory of some eminent action. These last most usually were equal to the 

 denarii consulares, and many of them had these characters ex. s. c, or else 

 s. p. a. K. Under Severus and Gordianus, the denarii began to recover their 

 primitive weight, but most commonly with a notable abasement, and mixture of 

 allay." Eisenschmid has given the like account of the imperial denarius, and 

 says, he found its weight from Nero to Sept. Severus, to be to the consular 

 denarius, in the proportion of 7 to 8. 



The denarius continued to be the current silver money of the empire, till 

 Constantine substituted the Miliarensis in its stead. The price of gold had 

 been increasing a considerable time before his reign, which made a new regulation 

 of the money necessary. For this purpose, Constantine divided the pound of 

 gold into 72 solidi, which was a more commodious number than either 40 or 

 45, as it divided the ounce and half ounce without a fraction. He likewise 

 altered the weight of the silver coin, and fixed the price of the pound of gold at 

 1000 pieces of his new silver, which were thence called miliarenses. This he 

 seems to have done in imitation of the ancient coinage; for when the aureus of 

 40 in the pound passed for 25 denarii, the pound of gold passed for 1000. But it 

 was attended with this inconvenience, that his solidus could not be exchanged for 

 its true value in silver; for lOOO divided by 72 is 13f ; but it passed for 14, which 

 was more than it was worth, and made 2 prices of gold at the same time; one 

 the legal price of 1000 miliarenses for the pound; the other, the current price, 

 of 14 for the solidus, which must have occasioned disputes in the payment of 

 small sums. To remedy this inconvenience, it was thought proper to alter the 

 weight of the silver money, and having fixed the price of the pound of silver, at 

 5 solidi, to coin 60 pieces out of it; which retained the name miliarenses, though 

 the pound of gold was worth only 864. 



A scholiast on the basilics tells us, that " One siliqua [of gold] is worth 1 2 

 foUes [of copper], or half a miliarensis: therefore 12 siliquas are half a solidus, 

 for the whole solidus is worth 12 miliarenses, or 24 siliquas." The Roman 

 pound contained 1728 siliquas, therefore there were 72 of these solidi in the 

 pound; and each of them being worth 12 miliarenses, the pound of silver, 

 which was valued at 5 solidi, must have contained 60 miliarenses. How many 

 miliarenses Constantine coined out of the pound of silver is no where said; but 

 if the price of gold was nearly the same in his reign, as when 5 solidi were worth 

 a pound of silver, the pound must have been worth 14-|- pounds of silver; and 



